Maybe at the recent G-20 summit, Obama and Putin might have had a conversation like this:
Putin: So you really got screwed when Parliament pulled the rug out from under Cameron.
Obama: Yeah, I really didn't see that one coming.
Putin: (chuckling) Sometimes democracy really sucks! Listen, now you have to go to Congress so maybe I can help.
Obama: Talk to me, dude. I can't deal with those knuckleheads.
Putin: Listen, you and I both know Assad is nuts, but we're his benefactor. If you do something then we have to help him, and frankly I'm not in the mood.
Obama: Neither am I, but I drew the red line.
Putin: (chuckling, again)That's not what you said at the press conference.
Obama: Aw c'mon Vlad, don't hand me that crap. You know I had to say that.
Putin: Okay,okay, I was just breaking chops. Look I don't want to get dragged into Assad's mess so how about this. You get Kerry to throw out a line that if Assad surrenders all his chemical weapons and they are removed from the country you'll consider no military action.
Obama: Why Kerry? Why not you or me?
Putin; We have to worry about our images. Kerry has foot in mouth disease. After all he was for it before he was against it. If he suggests it and it doesn't catch on you can just throw him under the bus. He doesn't give a crap his wife is loaded.
Obama: But if you and Assad latch on to it, then I can say it provides a better resolution and I don't have to worry about dealing with those nimnulls in Congress. I can say the threat of American military might prevailed! Seriously, you would let me take the credit for this?
Putin: (sighs) Yeah, but you'll owe me one. There's bigger fish to fry.
Obama: Wow, I can make an Oval Office address and really clean up my image, maybe even another Nobel Peace Prize!
Putin; Don't get ahead of yourself bright eyes. Remember, you're still my bitch on this one. And be careful about Oval Office addresses, Russians get nervous about that stuff.
Obama: Vlad I really owe you for this one.
Some good questions that need to answered. Seriously, why wouldn't the Russians just let Obama stew in his own juice? Why would they throw him a life line unless they believed that U.S. action would drag them into the mess. Interesting stuff.
15 Questions About the Increasingly Crazy Syria Debate
This has been a particularly manic day on the Syrian
front. Secretary of State John Kerry sent the debate into overdrive
first by promising that any American attack on Syria would be
"unbelievably small," and then with his suggestion -- quickly and surprisingly accepted
in broad strokes by Russia -- that Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad
could avert an attack by giving up his chemical weapons. Here are some
questions now worth asking:
1. Is Kerry a national-security genius, or a guy who says whatever half-baked idea comes to mind, or both?
2. Why are the Russians seemingly so ready to aid Kerry and
President Barack Obama by helping relieve Syria of its chemical weapons?
Since when is Russia interested in helping the U.S. out of a jam, even
if it burnishes its own reputation in the process?
3. Do these early signs that Russia might be interested in making a deal to avert an attack prove that threatening to attack was the right thing to do?
4. Who is making American policy on Syria? Kerry or Obama?
5. Why would Assad give up his chemical weapons? He saw what happened when Libya's late dictator Muammar Qaddafi gave up his weapons of mass destruction program, which is to say, he lost some of his deterrent power.
6. How do you possibly verify that Assad has given up all of his chemical weapons? The Syrian regime possesses hundreds of tons of these munitions.
7. Does Syria get to keep its biological weapons under this still nonexistent deal?
8. If the U.S. gives up the idea of an attack, would the remaining moderate rebels, so dispirited, start moving toward the al-Qaeda column?
9. How do you secure and transport all of these chemical-weapons components in the midst of a horrifically violent civil war?
10. Even if the theoretical strike was intended to be "unbelievably small," why would the U.S. tell Syria this?
11. A related question: Who goes to war not to win?
12. Let's just say that Assad gives up his chemical weapons. Does that mean he gets to kill civilians in more prosaic ways indefinitely? Is that it?
13. If Assad's behavior is even somewhat analogous to Hitler's, as administration officials (and surrogates like Senator Harry Reid) are suggesting, then how is it possible to argue for anything other than Assad's total defeat?
14. At a certain point in this drama, will any of the various Arab countries that want the U.S. to bomb Syria then go do it themselves?
15. How did the U.S. get so bollixed-up by the tin-pot dictator of a second-tier Middle East country?
1. Is Kerry a national-security genius, or a guy who says whatever half-baked idea comes to mind, or both?
3. Do these early signs that Russia might be interested in making a deal to avert an attack prove that threatening to attack was the right thing to do?
4. Who is making American policy on Syria? Kerry or Obama?
5. Why would Assad give up his chemical weapons? He saw what happened when Libya's late dictator Muammar Qaddafi gave up his weapons of mass destruction program, which is to say, he lost some of his deterrent power.
6. How do you possibly verify that Assad has given up all of his chemical weapons? The Syrian regime possesses hundreds of tons of these munitions.
7. Does Syria get to keep its biological weapons under this still nonexistent deal?
8. If the U.S. gives up the idea of an attack, would the remaining moderate rebels, so dispirited, start moving toward the al-Qaeda column?
9. How do you secure and transport all of these chemical-weapons components in the midst of a horrifically violent civil war?
10. Even if the theoretical strike was intended to be "unbelievably small," why would the U.S. tell Syria this?
11. A related question: Who goes to war not to win?
12. Let's just say that Assad gives up his chemical weapons. Does that mean he gets to kill civilians in more prosaic ways indefinitely? Is that it?
13. If Assad's behavior is even somewhat analogous to Hitler's, as administration officials (and surrogates like Senator Harry Reid) are suggesting, then how is it possible to argue for anything other than Assad's total defeat?
14. At a certain point in this drama, will any of the various Arab countries that want the U.S. to bomb Syria then go do it themselves?
15. How did the U.S. get so bollixed-up by the tin-pot dictator of a second-tier Middle East country?